Every Relationship Needs a Superhero
by iworkwithpens
Summary: Office relationships can be dangerous, especially for your co-workers. This situation calls for a superhero. Meet Maggie Jordan. Will/Mac.


**Author's Notes: Generally speaking, I'm not that into the whole Maggie/Don/Jim/Sloan thing. I mean I like them all, and truly I just enjoy everything about The Newsroom, but Will and Mackenzie just speak to me. So, if I'm not all that great at writing something from Maggie's point of view, forgive me. I was really just using it as an excuse to get Will and Mac together in yet another story! And this was partially inspired by LilacMermaid's prompt that "someone other than Charlie plays matchmaker." Thanks for another prompt, and thanks again for your beta skills. Still don't own The Newsroom…did anybody really think I did?**

Maggie Jordan had never really been a risk-taking kind of a girl. She had wanted to go to NYU for college, but her parents wanted her to go to the University of Wisconsin. In-state tuition and all that. So off she went to Wisconsin.

She told her family she wanted to major in journalism and they scoffed. What kind of job would she get with that degree? So she majored in English and got her teaching certificate. She never even told them she had completed a minor in journalism.

No, Maggie hadn't taken a lot of chances in her young life. Turning down that teaching position in Chicago for an unpaid internship in New York City had been her biggest life choice to date. And so far, all she had to show for it was a mountain of student debt and a shoebox sized apartment that she shared with the girl who was dating the guy she loved. Wait…did she just say love? Never mind. What she did have was a job she loved, working with amazing journalists she admired. Except when they were being complete idiots!

She loved Will and Mackenzie. She really did. But if this didn't end soon she was seriously going to reconsider that teaching job in Chicago. They had been at each other's throats for weeks. Fighting over every decision that had to be made. Everything. From show topics to graphics to whether or not the air conditioning was running too much.

Everyone in the newsroom had had enough. No one could get anything done because they were sure either Will or Mackenzie would find fault with their work, if only to have something to disagree about.

Well, if their managing editor and executive producer couldn't pull themselves together and fix whatever had gone wrong between them, Maggie Jordan decided she was going to have to give them a helping hand. Where she got the courage, she'd never know but she took it as a sign from God that the new maintenance man had lost his copy of the keys to their supply room. You see, the supply room on the twenty-fifth floor was huge. And it contained a lot of expensive items. Computer monitors, ink cartridges…the sorts of things that conveniently went missing if everybody could just wander in and grab whatever they needed.

So, when the new locks were installed that very morning and the maintenance man was nowhere to be found, Maggie was given the keys until she could pass them along to him.

And when Will and Mackenzie wandered past her desk, screaming at each other about who knows what, Maggie knew what she had to do. She just hoped she would still have a job by the end of the day.

"Will, Mackenzie…Charlie Skinner said he needed you to meet with someone from P.R. just down the hall" she told them.

Lucky for her, by the time they were halfway down the hallway they were at full throttle again…yelling at each other so loudly they wouldn't have known if she was leading them to the slaughter let alone to a storage room. She quietly opened the door for them and pushed them inside…locking the door behind them.

"Please God…I'm doing this for the right reason…please don't let them fire me" she sent a quiet prayer upwards and headed back to the newsroom.

She must have looked shaken because all eyes turned toward her as she sat at her desk as if in a trance.

"Maggie, are you ok?" Jim asked her.

"Oh sure…just hoping both Will and Mackenzie come out of that storage closet alive and unharmed or I'm likely to be out of a job by the end of the day" she said quietly.

"What!" Jim screamed.

"Could you keep your voice down…I just put my job on the line to try to get those two to figure it the hell out!" she shouted back at him.

Before either of them could stop it, most of the staff was gathered around them trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I just locked Will and Mackenzie in the storage closet" she said quietly to the group of co-workers that now surrounded her desk. And to her surprise, a roar of approval and a round of applause sounded out from them.

"Finally…do you think this will help?" Tamara asked.

"You don't think they'll kill each other do you?" Martin wanted to know.

"Thank the lord…if those two don't have sex soon one of them is going to burst an aneurysm." That came from Sloan, of course.

The yelling went on for what seemed like hours. The staff took turns wandering down the hallway to see if they could hear what was happening. Producer after producer would return from that long walk down to the storage room with their head hanging down, unwilling to meet Maggie's questioning eyes. Damn, they were still screaming at each other. Maggie Jordan's next paycheck was looking more uncertain by the minute.

Nearly two hours into this it was finally Sloan's turn. She headed down the hallway which was suddenly, blessedly, quiet. Had the yelling finally stopped? Yes, apparently it had, but some other very interesting noises were coming out of that storage closet. Sloan grinned and practically ran back into the newsroom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe our esteemed bosses will be considerably more relaxed and a great deal less argumentative when they return. Maggie Jordan you are a genius!" Sloan announced to the room full of her colleagues.

Shouts and applause rang out through the room. High fives and pats on the back were exchanged and nearly everyone personally thanked Maggie. They were all so enthusiastically celebrating the possibility of a stress-free workplace that they failed to notice Charlie Skinner entering the newsroom.

"What in the name of all that is holy is going on in here?" Charlie shouted over all the noise.

Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at each other, wondering who was going to explain this to Charlie.

"Where are Will and Mackenzie? They were supposed to be in my office twenty minutes ago!"

"Um, sir…you see they were having a disagreement this morning and…" Maggie trailed off.

Leave it to Sloan to fill in the blanks.

"Charlie, Will and Mackenzie have been trying to tear each other's hair out and driving the rest of us insane, so Maggie locked them in the storage closet down the hall until they could come to a meeting of the minds on certain things" Sloan informed him.

They all held their collective breath and waited for Charlie's response.

"Are they both still alive?" he asked.

"Yes sir" Sloan replied with a small smirk. "They are still _very much_ alive."

"And have they worked everything out?" he asked her.

"Oh yeah…it sure sounds like they're working it out to me, sir." A few laughs and giggles could be heard from the staffers at Sloan's remarks.

"Well then, no need for that meeting in my office. Ms. Jordan come see me later…you have a very bright future at this company" Charlie told her just before he walked away grinning like an idiot.

It took nearly another hour for Maggie to risk walking down that hallway and unlocking the door. No way in hell was she going in there…she didn't need that image in her mind. Walking in on Will and Mackenzie would be like walking in on her parents. Except for the fact that her parents couldn't fire her. Please God, she silently prayed again, please say I still have a job.

Later that afternoon, the newsroom went silent as they watched Will and Mackenzie practically sprint past all of them and into Will's office. Staffers exchanged a few knowing glances and winks. Will had been carrying his jacket and tie and Mackenzie just looked stunned. Thank God it was Friday and a light news day…most of the show that night would be entirely put together by the associate producers without so much as a peep coming from their bosses.

As the days passed and the drama that had been Will and Mackenzie seemed to settle down into a new and better working relationship, Maggie began to notice little gifts showing up on her desk. Candy, a latte from Starbucks, a gift certificate to the nail salon down the street. Her co-workers were repaying her for taking the risk and improving all their lives.

Two days later, a small Wonder Woman figurine appeared on her desk. She didn't have to ponder that one for too long. Jim looked over and gave her a small wink.

"Maggie Jordan…you are a super hero" he told her as he headed toward the control room.

Two weeks later everyone noticed that Will and Mackenzie were now arriving at and leaving the office together. Will was more relaxed than he had been in years, so Maggie was sure she knew who the bottle of Dom Perignon was from when she saw it sitting on her desk the next day.

She was however surprised by the card she found attached to it. It read simply: Do that again and we'll fire you…but in the meantime, get your head out of your ass and share this with Jim. You might just have a shot at being one-tenth as happy as we are. Love, Will and Mackenzie.

No, Maggie Jordan had never taken many chances in her life…but this one had worked out brilliantly. She looked over at Jim and thought she just might take their advice.


End file.
